Bent County register., 1887-04-30
The B,eperteno0 ofan Old
Timer. Twenty Years
Ago and Now.

Editor Las Animas Bugie.
DEAR SlR:-You ask me to write
for your paper some of my expert
ences in Bent county. 1 am not ad-
equate to the task. I do not feel
capable of doing the subject justice
in the manner my mind would like
to convey it to the reader. The
growth of the county, the advance
of civilization, the metamorphosis
and the development of certain sec
tions are so beyond the power Of
human reasoning that we can but
simply make an attempt in showing
and proving the facts without trying
10 explain the why or wherefore.
Twenty years ago started on
trip across the plains for Santa Fe,
a black snake in my hands, prairie
schooner and eight yokes of oxen by
my side. From Fort Ellsworth, at
that time considered the outpost of
the great American desert, we were
kept company by the war painted
faces of the Kaw Indians, Arrapa-
hoes and the Cheyennes. When l
recall to my mind the sincere and
heartfelt curses 1 then heaped upon
the vast, undulating mirage expanse
stretching before me, it seems like .
breach of promise to have to say any
thing good of the scenes of such des-
olate recoliections. Bent county was
then inhabited by afew hundred SOL
diers, few trappers, several tribes
of Indians and buffaloes.
/ ask the indulgence of the reader
and I pray him to draw on his imag-
| ination rather than depend on my
power of description TO arrive At .
satisfactory comprehension of ~
changes that have taken place il this
once thought irredeemable wiIs.er-
ness and to figure to himself the fu-
ture before it, now that all the latest
engines of science are springing up
and are at work on its bosom.
The few hunters and hardy pio-
neers who were then scattered along
tho grassy bottoms of the Arkansas
river soon became .cattlemen under
the exceptional opportunities of al
most continuous good weather, Ital-
ian climate, limitless free grass and
no end of elbow room and space.
Buffaloes were replaced by herds of
cattle. The hunters and the pioneers
woke up one day and found them
selves cattle kings and saw Bent
county the banner cattle raising re-
glon of the west. By degrees the
most successful and far seeing of the
residents while proclaiming and ad-
vertising in public the worthlessness
of Bent county as farming land,
whispered low among one another
that they had better take time by the
forelock for they would not always
be successful in making the keen
perceptions and tho sound Judgment
of the trained eastern farmers believe
that in q land where wild grass
grows waist deep, sun flowers fifteen
feet high, weeds so rank and SO thick
that one cannot ride through it, and
all that without irrigation; q country
| that keeps thousands of cattle fat all
winter with no care will not raise
crops. A good many of them began
to fence in the most favorable spots.
Some attempts were made at raising
tame grass, and 10! it raised alfalfa
three and eour tons to the acre, three
times q year. Some feeble attempts
at gardening were made, the. results
were garden stuff of unusual size and
health. Cabbage heads big as drums
and hard as boulders; water-melons
sweet aud mellow and big as beer
kegs. One squash exhibited last
year, raised three miles from Las
Animas, weighed one hundred and
fifty pounds. There was no use to
deceive one another any more. Even
the most obdurate had to give away
before the blows Of the slcdge ham,
' mare of facta